Saccharine
by Messenger of Light
Summary: It was the saccharine sweet melody that drew him in...and the Unbeing that made him stay. A sweet AU Oneshot.


A saccharinely sweet melody drifted through the night, entwining with the musky scent of sage that seemed to float on the air. It drew him, as it did every night, from his bed and through the thin rice paper door on its track, past the kitchen and the room of the old man to the courtyard, where she would always be standing inside of a carefully placed stone circle.

The procession of events was always the same, now so familiar to him that he found himself reciting them in his dreams. At his appearance she would not react, merely keeping her back to him and her mind focused on the particular stretch she was performing. Not until she fancied herself done would the young woman turn, red eyes gleaming with reflected moonlight. Their eyes would meet, and a look of defiance would flash across both pairs of ruby orbs, issuing a silent challenge for the other to back away first.

She would always win. There was something about the thin sheen of sweat and the allure of having the thinly veiled power that would make him glance to another place-the ground, the moon, sometimes following the smoke. The spell was always instantly broken, and her eyes would soften in something he could not recognize.

Her bare feet would pad three times around the large circle, which he surmised to be always about two or three meters in diameter. It wasn't until his senses had developed resistance to the sweet, smoky scent of sage that he realized she would move in the counterclockwise direction-widdershins, the direction of undoing and opposite of the rhythms of nature.

She would stop abruptly, then break the physical rock circle with one hand and hold another out to beckon him. Her only witness to a silent and private ritual mused that his feet would seem to move of their own accord, and then his hand take hers. The brunette would replace the rock and lead him to the center of the circle, sitting him cross-legged facing a specific direction.

Her feet would once again pad in a circle, her left hand directly above the rocks, her right carrying on her hip a black bowl of water. Occasionally, she would pause on her desoil circle and touch a rock, painting a symbol with her finger and a bit of salty water-he could smell the tang in the air when she passed him-on a larger rock.

As she completed the third round of her passes and painting, she would set the bowl down in front of the decorated rock he was facing. The symbol was never the one he had faced the time before, and at later times the young man would muse as to the reason of her movements being so precise. She would come to him again, mimicking his position and taking up his hands.

Her left was on top of his right, and his left on her right. A perfect balance that meant no one was in control, and the two different individual strengths forced to work together. She would close her eyes and he would follow suit, breathing deepening as she took him deeper into an unknown place that frightened him and filled him with wonder every time she would allow him to come with her to the place he called the Unbeing.

On one occasion after she had seemed…off…that night, he was taken to a place of sweet things and girlish beauty, and somehow instinct insisted that this was innately _wrong_ and something that had been forced out long, long ago. She had been angry when she found him there, her eyes blazing and power crackling around her. With ease he was transported out of her mind and into the space that could only be described as ethereal, the sense of balance, of making and unmaking allowing him to feel at peace for a few moments.

Today, however, they visited together, so the thought passed his mind that she had purposely taken him there-a place where all sense of time and space was lost, and he found himself drifting in the uncomfortable sensation of a place where there were no normal rules of time or space or even magic. It was simply _there_, and it had been _there_ for a very long time, and didn't plan on going anywhere else, thank you very much.

The sense of power that seeped through to him had become almost unbearable, the emotions running wild and tangled, weaving themselves together in a maniacal form of some tapestry. Grief twisted with joy, sorrow with the feeling of an attitude, and they shaped themselves to become a…he couldn't even begin to describe the being that had been formed from pure emotion.

As he worked loose of his partner's hand they shot back to reality, her cold glare a sure sign that he had done something wrong. He opened his mouth to speak-to say what he didn't know-but was silenced by a hand as she waked widdershins again, picking up the smaller rocks that were bare of faintly damp markings. They were placed in a pile to the side, and she bowed to the large rocks, taking them one at a time to rest in their proper directions, almost standing as guards to the small piled lumps.

She took a burlap bag from behind a tree and began to place them in, one by one, in a precise order as she had done every night he saw her. As she moved to place them, struggling with the weight, he came up to her silently; a hand on the drawstring, then set them where she usually did. With a quick movement she was sitting next to him and leaning against the tree.

It was then that one of the two would speak, usually the female first, then the male joining in after much careful prodding. Their voices were always kept low, lest someone find them and interrupt this sacred time when the sun was just beginning to rise and the moon to fall. It was almost like the place they had visited-within but without time. This time, however, he spoke first.

"Where were we?" his voice was soft and husky, and she would've called it undeniably sexy if she hadn't been just knocked violently out of the working. The ground they sat on was not yet dew dropped, he mused as a gloved hand ran over the bright green blades, then through his hair.

"It's…hard to explain, Kai," she followed the pattern that usually occurred on these nights, when she refused to tell him what happened or where-_when_, too-they had gone. She had broken a key rule, an element in all of this madness that kept him sane, though. She had used his name.

Normally, he could look over her as just another companion that he could tolerate-more than Tyson or Max, but certainly not as an object of his affection. He didn't _have_ objects of affection, as Voltaire had called them. A growl left his throat when he felt her looking over at him, ruby red eyes staring and veiling thinly the turmoil inside her head.

"Hilary…" he trailed off, looking into the distance, but not resisting her decision to keep the place and its purpose veiled. He had tried many times before to gaze into even the shallow points of the Unbeing but had failed, accepting it as something that was hers and hers alone-she simply chose to share it with him.

Something warm rested itself on his shoulder-when he looked there was a petite hand, with short but graceful fingers, nails cut off at an acceptable place and carefully rounded. Hilary moved herself closer to him, the other hand coming up to brush away a stray piece of hair that had fallen across his face. Her fingers found themselves resting on his cheekbone, gently tracing the outline of his jaw when…

Neither would remember how it happened, or who started it, but in a split second Kai was pinning Hilary to the ground with his weight, one hand supporting himself with splayed fingers above her head, another grasping the hand of hers that had touched him so gently, so kindly.

Her fingers entwined with his, thumb moving in soothing circles on the back of his hand. Their breathing intenisfied, her face became heated and she realized the full brunt of what was happening--but somehow, Hilary didn't seem to care. This place felt as innately _right_ as the Unbeing felt, half-crushed under the wiry form of a blue-haired youth with blood-red eyes.

His movements were tentative, the supporting hand entwining itself in her thick hair as he leaned down, her breaths lightly fluttering against his face. A petite hand reached up to trace the line of his paint with a fingernail, and he simply didn't care what happened anymore—screw Voltaire, Boris, Tyson, everything he had ever been taught. Because this girl, this simple brunette with eyes that matched his, made him _feel_.

And that was all that mattered, he thought resolutely as his head dipped and their lips brushed, the sensation overwhelming. In the Unbeing, where time did not exist and bonds were tested, all that mattered was your anchor.

And he had found his in this girl, and the saccharinely sweet melody that had drawn him to her.

FIN

A simple oneshot that came to my head one day awhile back, and stuck there until I wrote it. The first fanfiction I've written in a long time, not beta-ed and coming to you after a few times of careful revision.I'd appreciate reviews, because I know I should be getting to a sequel for The Day Hope Died soon and I'd love any ideas you have.

3 Messenger


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